Portable lifts are widely used in industry for many lifting operations. The lift of the present invention is a hand propelled lift useful for lifting loads up to about 1,000 pounds although with heavier duty winches and braces, greater loads can be lifted. Generally, it has been impossible to provide a portable, manually operated lift in which the lifting capacity significantly exceeds the winch rating. Accordingly, in order to lift heavier loads, it was necessary to change winches and in some cases add further struts and braces. This obviously is a undesirable situation because it requires man hours to adjust or modify equipment in the field.
Another problem encountered in portable lifts of the type set forth, is in the outriggers necessary to balance the lift when it is lifting heavy loads. Many outriggers designs are cumbersome and require continual adjustment of the outrigger feet, since they tend to drag on the ground and either become worn or become difficult to move from the storage position to the use position and vice versa. Yet another problem in the art is unwanted shimming and oscillations at the pulley head when extra heavy loads are lifted.
The problems set forth above, including the ability to lift significantly more than the rated winch capacity and the difficulty in moving outriggers from between the storage and use positions thereof have been overcome by my present invention, which also provides a much steadier mechanism for lifting extra heavy loads, up to twice the rated winch capacity.